🏮 Ichinomiya Kenka Matsuri

一の宮けんか祭り

Itoigawa, Niigata (Amatsu Shrine) · Every year on 10 April

MikoshiTraditional performing arts

208 days to go
Rooms around Itoigawa, Niigata fill up while the festival is on.

The Amatsujinja Spring Grand Festival at Amatsu Shrine in Itoigawa, Niigata, held every year on April 10, is commonly known as the Itoigawa Kenka Festival. It is a spring rite praying for good catches and good harvests, and has long been called the Festival of the Tenth in nearby areas, beginning with drums at midnight. The main attraction is the kenka mikoshi, in which two mikoshi (portable shrines) from the Oshiage and Teramachi districts clash violently. It is said that if the Oshiage district, in crimson happi coats, wins, there will be a good catch, and if the Teramachi district, in light yellow-green happi coats, wins, there will a good harvest. Young men run with the mikoshi and grapple fiercely, engaging in several intense scuffles. When the drumbeat changes as they reach exhaustion, the event shifts to the omawari, in which the mikoshi dash around the shrine grounds. After the kenka mikoshi, the Itoigawa and Nō no Bugaku, designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, is offered, and the quiet, refined performance on the stage changes the atmosphere of the shrine grounds completely. On the following day, April 11, only the bugaku offering is held, and one can appreciate the traditional performing art passed down from the lineage of Shitennō-ji Temple in Osaka through the performance of twelve pieces.